Pearl Jam is a popular American rock band formed in 1990 in Seattle, which enabled the band to become one of the "great four" of Grunge, alongside Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The band formed out of the ashes of local Seattle band Mother Love Bone, whose singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose in 1990. Bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard began writing songs together, and eventually guitarist Mike McCready joined them. Looking for a singer and a drummer, they recorded a demo tape and gave it to former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, who declined the invitation but passed the tape onto his friend, San Diego surfer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was impressed by the tape, recorded his own vocals for a few of the songs and sent it back to Stone, Jeff, and Mike. Within a week, Vedder was hired, and flew up to Seattle to join the band.

The rest is rock history; their first album, Ten, sold over 13 million copies, with the singles "Alive" and "Jeremy" becoming massively successful. Vs., the second, reached #1 on the charts the week it came out, outselling the other nine albums on the top 10 combined. This led to some backlash from purist Seattle rock groups, especially Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who even alleged that the band had sold out to the mainstream. This led to Creator Backlash from Vedder, who decided to erase any pretense of commercialism from the band's music, which led to some tension between the band members; they had a Revolving Door Band of drummers around this time due to internal differences. The four core members have nevertheless remained intact since the band's inception.

Since then, the band has rebelled against their fame and stardom, first by boycotting and later suing the mega-corporation Ticketmaster, which would raise consumer ticket prices at band shows. Due to the lawsuit, the band's ability to receive proper venues declined, much to the chagrin of its audience. Pearl Jam then decided to move away from their Arena Rock roots (for the most part) to more experimental sounds in Alternative Rock on later albums Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield. While not commercially well-received, Pearl Jam's material through the mid- to late-'90s was critically lauded before the band hit a period of stagnation at the Turn of the Millennium.

They have since made a return to their hard rock origins with their Self-Titled Album, released in 2006. Their following two albums, Backspacer (2009) and Lightning Bolt (2013), were domestically distributed through Pearl Jam's own label, Monkeywrench Records. Pearl Jam continues to tour constantly to give fans an opportunity to see them live.

Jeremy troped in class today:

Affectionate Parody: The song "Dirty Frank"note first released on the European edition of "Ten" and afterwards as a B-side for "Even Flow" is a rather obvious style-parody of Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Give It Away" from Blood Sugar Sex Magik. This parody is complete with overtly sexual lyrics in the vein of Anthony Kiedis... albeit about a cannibal. The Peppers had also had their commercial breakthrough just around the time Ten was recorded.

All Drummers Are Animals: Dave Abbruzzese's drumming was incredibly energetic, which forced the band to consider a massive shift in their style once he left. He also wrote "Go", which became a hit.

Apocalypse How: "Do the Evolution" shows a post-modern dystopia eventually ending in nuclear war and the destruction of mankind.

Ate His Gun: The music video for "Jeremy" ends with the eponymous character shooting himself in front of his classmates.

Badass Beard: The bandmembers, Eddie in particular, go in and out with this.

Bookends: Ten opens and ends on "Master/Slave", an instrumental driven by a fretless bass. rearviewmirror has one of sorts: it begins with the Ten opening track ("Once") and ends with an outtake from that album that it's the band's usual show closer ("Yellow Ledbetter").

Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: From "Jeremy", "At home drawing pictures/ Of mountain tops/ With him on top/Lemon yellow sun/ Arms raised in a V / And the dead lay in pools of maroon below

In "Daughter", Vedder describes that for the titular protagonist, "The shades go down in her mind." Then, later, on "Rearviewmirror", from the same album: "Finally the shades are raised."

"1/2 Full" references "Porch" and "Love Boat Captain" in just two lines: "There ain't gonna be any middle anymore/it's been said before."

"Love Boat Captain" references "Tremor Christ:" "Is this just another phase of earthquakes making waves?"

"Lightning Bolt" references "Nothingman" in its chorus: "You've got to know you’ll never let her go/She's a Lightning bolt!"

Calling the Old Man Out: "Better Man", according to Eddie Vedder, is "dedicated to the bastard that married my Momma" — his stepfather, with whom he didn't share the best of relationships. Inversely seen in "Release", written for his biological father, whom he hardly knew.

The first second of "Infallible" is heard at the end of "Lightning Bolt"

Faux Affably Evil: The Perky GothGrim Reaper in "Do The Evolution" comes off as this, grinning manically and blowing kisses as the world falls apart around her; at the end, she grins with delight as the world is completely destroyed.

Gory Discretion Shot: Jeremy's suicide at the end of the titular video. The TV edit also removes the shot of him putting the gun in his mouth.

Gratuitous Panning: The guitar fills during the second verse of "Even Flow" switch between being played exclusively in the left channel and exclusively in the right, and the remixed version of Ten tends to put the rhythm and acoustic guitars on one side and the lead guitar on the other.

Grief Song: They're amazingly good at them. "Black", "Release", "Man Of The Hour", "Come Back", "Sad", "Light Years", "Just Breathe", "Immortality", "Love Boat Captain", and for an interesting twist, "Other Side" (written from the perspective of someone who's in the afterlife, but still grieves.)

The Grim Reaper: Present as a pretty, black-haired lady in "Do the Evolution".

Special mention goes out to "Yellow Ledbetter". When Eddie Vedder was asked about it in an interview, the first thing he said was "Wait... you mean there's lyrics?"

In the Style of...: A few songs are deliberate attempts to imitate other artists: "Soon Forget" to The Who (Pete Townshend is even thanked on the lyric sheet), "Sirens" to Pink Floyd, and "Dirty Frank" is a style parody of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, particularly "Give It Away" (and it also contains a line which parodies Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft.").

Isn't It Ironic?: "Better Man" is heard in weddings. You know, a song that goes "She lies and says she's in love with him..."

Long Runner Line Up: They've had the same crew since 1998, after going through several drummers.

Long Title: They usually have one word-title songs. They eventually got tired of it and wrote "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". That title especially stands out on the back cover of Vs, which is otherwise entirely one or two word titles.

Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: 6-7 for songs like "Blood" and "Spin the Black Circle;" 2-3 for ballads; 1 for oddities like "Sometimes." Every studio album, but Binaural and Riot Act is mostly in 4-5 territory (those are mainly 2-3).

Miniscule Rocking: "Pry, To," "Lukin," and "Red Dot" are all just over a minute long. Due to some motormouth vocals, "Lukin" actually manages to fit in two verses, and a chorus in that time.

Mondegreen: The chorus of "Glorified G" is easily misheard as: "glorified version of a pelican." The band knows about it, and occasionally sings it with those lyrics in concert. Also, the liner notes to Vitalogy, include a mondegreen for "Better Man," scrawled beneath the real lyrics: "Can't find the butter, man."

As most of the band, including Eddie Vedder, are huge NBA fans, one can't be blamed if they hear "lick the dirt off Olajuwon's feet" instead of "lick the dirt off a larger one's feet" in "Rats". After all, vs. was released in 1993, when Hakeem "The Dream" was one of the NBA's top players.

Mood Whiplash: Normally their songs are fairly depressing, but especially "Indifference." It starts off appearing to be a simple, "You'll never break me song," but what it is actually is Vedder lamenting, why he does the things he does, even though they make little difference, in what he wants to change.

"Do the Evolution" from Yield is about the mistreatment of Native Americans; at a 2016 concert, when a fan threw a Donald Trump mask onto the stage, Vedder seized the moment, wore the mask, and replaced the lyric "Indians" with "immigrants" in the song.

Remaster: The first three albums have been remastered and re-released, each with a number of unreleased songs and demos; Ten was also remixed.

Re Arrange The Song: After the departure of Dave Abbruzzese (whose drumming was a vital part of the song), "W.M.A." was reworked, adding an acoustic guitar part to play the main riff, removing the emphasis on percussion, and slightly changing the lyrics, to reflect harassment of Hispanic immigrants in Arizona.

Rock Band: The second game has the entirety of Ten and Backspacer as DLC, "Life Wasted" and "Even Flow" are in Guitar Hero 2 (Xbox 360 version) and 3 (all versions) respectively.

Shout-Out: Originally named "Mookie Blaylock," after a basketball player the guys admired. While they had to change their name, their first album, Ten, is Mookie's jersey number.

"Yellow Ledbetter" to Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing," "Given to Fly" to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." The title of "Yellow Ledbetter" is partially a reference, to blues singer Huddy Ledbetter, better known by the Stage Name Lead Belly.

"Love Boat Captain" includes the line: "It's already been sung, it can't be said enough, all you need is love."

The last lines of "Rats" are a direct quote of Michael Jackson's first big solo hit — "Ben, the two of us need look no more."

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